Side by Side

by Jenni L. Walsh

  We end up stealing two cars, one for them, one for us. A little distance from Buck and Blanche will do us some good. After we move our belongings from the abandoned car into our practical sedans, we’re going nowhere again. So many times the question’s on the tip of my tongue: Clyde, what we doing to get to the farms? But Clyde’s Jones-sized wound is still too large, and I let him drive. Just drive.

  Buck and Blanche trail us, and as we approach a bend in the road, I hold my breath. My mind skips twenty seconds into the future, where I can imagine us hitting the straightaway but Buck and Blanche never doing the same. I may be happy to do without the bickering with them for a few hours, but that doesn’t mean I want them to vanish, too.

  I stare into the sideview mirror, watching and watching, hoping that vision doesn’t come true. We come out of the bend. My breath’s just ’bout gone. Then there they are, still behind us.

  Clyde’s eyes are hidden behind his shades, and I can’t be sure, but I think his shoulders let down, as if he thought someone else he cared ’bout would up and leave him, too. For the past few days, his fear’s been coming out as anger, his fuse short as can be. Really, I don’t know what’s been worse, Clyde’s temper or the angry storms that have been sweeping ’cross the South. But I do know I’m tired of being tired, to the point where I feel fevered. Endless hours in a car will do that to ya, hour after hour of a thick silence, only broken when Buck bickered with Clyde or Clyde bickered with Buck.

  Now we’ve got some peace and quiet, almost too quiet. I hum, trying to up my own spirits, then louder when Clyde doesn’t object, even gives me a small smile. He’s trying, for me. That sliver of a smile reminds me he’ll always try for me, even when others let him down.

  I hope he knows that won’t ever be me. I squeeze his hand, wishing I had more to give him, wishing I had more to give myself. I want to laugh, good and hearty, a sound that feels foreign to me. Clyde’s laugh does, too. His best ones always slip out when I least expect it, also catching him off guard. But neither of us got a reason to laugh at the moment. And if I start hooting out of nowhere, that can only mean one thing: I’ve lost my damn mind.

  Some time later, we’re in some town in some state, and Clyde pulls over. He dips his sunglasses, looking over them at a grocery store.

  “Pretty nice town,” he says. “Probably a decent haul inside.”

  I roll my head in a circle, my neck giving me a satisfying crack. “I’m coming, too.”

  He drops his sunglasses back into place, hiding his eyes. The tip of his tongue pokes out of his mouth.

  “Stop your thinkin’, Clyde. I need out of this car.”

  I need something concrete to do. I want to feel something, a rush of anything besides the tingling in my rear end from sitting here for so long—and the scrunching feeling in my tummy that our boy Jones had enough of being with us. It’s a thought I don’t allow myself to have too often. Clyde’s probably having it enough for us both.

  Clyde gives me a nod. It’s cute of him, thinking that tilt of his head—saying it’s okay for me to come along—would’ve led to a different response than if his head moved side to side. Almost makes me chuckle.

  By the time I’ve hidden a small gun on me and I get to Buck’s car window, Clyde’s already there.

  Blanche throws up her hands. “Well, I want no part of this. Bad enough Buck is involved.”

  “No one’s making you join us,” Clyde says. “Better you ain’t.”

  Wrinkles appear between Blanche’s eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Baby,” Buck says, shaking his head. “You can’t have it both ways.”

  She crosses her arms, and Clyde leans in through Buck’s window, lowering his voice. “Drive her out ’bout two miles, Blanche. We’ll meet ya there when the deed’s done.”

  Clyde raps on Buck’s door, his way of saying, Come on, Buck, get out so Blanche can get the hell out of here. He lights a cigarette and stares through his exhaled smoke at the grocery store, formulating a plan in his head.

  Moving in sync, Clyde offers and I’m taking our shared cigarette.

  “Let’s make this easy. Bonnie, stay by the door. Once we pull our guns, pull yours, slowly scanning the store for any funny business. Fire if ya need to, but I’d rather we keep this outing quiet. Buck, you know the drill.”

  With that, we head ’cross the street. To the right of Jim’s Grocer is a watchmaker. To the left, an insurance company. Coca-Cola signs cover Jim’s storefront. I wouldn’t mind a bottle, now that it’s in my head.

  Jim’s door jingles as we walk in. It ain’t a big place. A counter stretches down the left side, and shelving stacked with bottles, cans, and boxes fills the wall behind it. Almost in a haphazard mess, crates and sacks are grouped on the tiled floor to make up the rest of the small store.

  Clyde and Buck weave ’round the produce, grains, and oversized cans, assessing the store. Jim, behind the counter in his white apron, a tie tucked neatly underneath, doesn’t take much notice of the boys. His head’s down, reading a newspaper. It’d be our dumb luck if it was an article ’bout us. Besides Jim, there’s only one other man I see, looking as if he’s trying to decide between red or black beans. I bet his wife sent him ’cause she forgot an ingredient she needs for supper.

  Clyde catches my eye, holds up a single finger. Looks like I only got to watch the one man, as he decides which beans his wife needs. He stumbles to the side, and I snort. Bet ya he also got assigned this errand after he put back a few beers.

  A cat, black on top, white on the bottom, winds itself between Clyde’s legs. Buck shoos it away. Then, their pistols are out from beneath their suit jackets.

  Quick, I yank my blouse from my skirt and pull my gun free from the waistband.

  The man looks up, red beans in his left hand, black beans in his right. I wink at him, my arms stretched out, a pistol at the end.

  “Jim?” he calls.

  “Don’t be a hero,” Jim responds. I flick my gaze to the owner. His hands are up.

  “No need for anyone to get hurt,” Clyde says, his voice a purr. “Empty the register, and we’ll be on our way. If your hands go anywhere ’cept into that there drawer”—he nods toward the register—“my brother here will make ya sorry.”

  The cat meows, and my eyes are back on the man with the beans, the cat now at his feet. He’s a step closer than he was before. I cock my head at him, and get the bright idea to say, “Put those cans down.”

  We don’t need him lobbing them at Clyde’s or Buck’s head, now do we?

  It doesn’t take more than thirty seconds for Jim to empty his register. Clyde stuffs the bills into the interior pockets of his jacket.

  It ain’t much, but it never is from these small stores. Jim’s probably got a safe somewhere with more, probably a gun or two tucked beneath his counter as well. But Clyde wants to keep this quick and quiet. He’s already backing away from Jim and, for some reason, toward the man, who no longer holds those beans. I keep my pistol on him. Then Clyde’s got him by the arm, the gun pressed to his back.

  “Let’s take a quick walk, shall we?” Clyde says.

  The man’s lower jaw shifts back and forth as his legs move him toward the door.

  Buck backpedals, his attention on Jim, in case he makes any quick movements below his counter. Not like he will, not when he’s outnumbered three to one and we’ve got us a hostage.

  The door jingles as I kick it open, stretching out my leg to keep it that way. Clyde steers the man through, pecking my cheek. “Thanks, sweetie.”

  The sweetie makes me chuckle; not something Clyde’s called me before, but I reckon he didn’t want to use my real name or even call me darling like he usually does.

  Once Buck is out, he hovers outside the door and nods to me that I can let the door close. That bell jingles again, the sound trailing me as I start running to the driver’s seat to get her started. I feel eyes on me, but only a few. And the heaviness of their gaze is fleeting, as if they k
now something wrong is going on, but it ain’t something they want to get tangled up with. That’s how folks are nowadays, slow to intervene, as if part of them wishes they had the guts to also take what they want in a time where so much has been taken from them.

  “See,” I overhear Clyde saying to the man, “no one’s getting hurt here today. Run on, now.”

  The engine purrs. The man Clyde released is down the block, running into another building. Buck’s still got his pistol aimed at Jim’s door.

  “You think you’re driving, do ya, Bonnie?” Clyde calls with a grin, no doubt fueled by the adrenaline of our successful robbery. I’m fine with that, being one of his dimples has come out to play, and is distracting me from a smart comeback.

  I lick my lips, then open my mouth, hoping the words will come, when instead, I scream, “Clyde!”

  Out of the corner of my eye, our hostage is running back up the block, with a shotgun leading his way.

  Clyde’s curses are jumbled, mixing with his shouts for Buck to get back to the car. The man fires, at Clyde, at Buck, I ain’t sure, but both react to the sound, dropping to the ground. From his stomach, Clyde bangs on the outside of the car. “Go, Bonnie, drive!”

  With both him and Buck outside?

  A bullet fires, close by, probably from Clyde’s gun, and the man down the street takes cover behind a newspaper stand.

  I drive—right as Clyde starts to round the front of the car to get to the passenger side. He ends up splayed ’cross the fender. I switch my foot to the brake and Clyde lashes with the sudden stop. Somehow, he’s still plastered to the front of the car. “Drive!”

  My head’s all over the place, turning every which way. Buck’s runnin’ toward us, now trailing us, being I’m picking up speed. Clyde’s propped on the front of the car, his gun pressed against his hip so he can hold it with one arm. I will for Buck to hurry.

  Gunshots have me dipping in my seat, barely able to see over the wheel, and when I do, there’s Clyde, his body blocking most of my view of Main Street. I use the wheel to pull myself up and let out a relieved breath when, in the rearview mirror, there’s Buck hanging onto the back of the sedan. At least I’ve got him, even if he ain’t quite inside the car.

  Not like Clyde is either, but I’m moving, getting us the hell out of here before one of those bullets knocks either of the boys off the car.

  I look again at Clyde; it’s hard not to. Then, I’m laughing. Clyde clinging onto the front of a car like a monkey shouldn’t be funny, but—Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—I can’t keep myself together. That is, ’til his hand slides ’cross the windshield, leaving behind a streak of red.

  My laughter trails off.

  I risk slowing the car to make a turn out of town. On a country road, I push the speedometer up to fifty, sixty, sixty-five, praying the boys can hold on. In the rearview, I look beyond Buck and see no one’s following us, and I steer onto the road’s bank.

  Clyde immediately jumps off the fender, using both hands to brace himself after his feet hit solid ground. He makes for the driver’s side, not the passenger’s, and I slide over, gladly letting him have the wheel.

  Two doors slam, and once more, the trees whiz by.

  “Buck?” Clyde says, his voice even, cool. Now our speedometer climbs to seventy, eighty, almost ninety.

  “In the legs, some buckshots made a home there,” Buck says. “Took a shot to the hand, too, but it ricocheted off my wedding band. Can ya imagine that? Wait ’til Blanche hears ’bout it.”

  Clyde snorts. “Dear brother, don’t be so cavalier when you tell the missus.”

  Buck laughs, and I’m happy I ain’t the only one who’s gone a touch loopy.

  “And you, Clyde?” I say. “What ya got to tell me ’bout dangling from our car?”

  “That you’re a horrendous driver.”

  I cross my arms, but I’m smirking.

  “Few slugs in my hip, and”—he frees the wheel to rip back his left sleeve, speckled with blood—“yep, got me in the arm.”

  The sight of Clyde’s blood corks my adrenaline, and the fact he survived a shoot-out—again—finally sinks in. I rub my crossed arms, warming away the layer of goose bumps. Worries me, it does … how many lives could a cat like Clyde possibly have?

  * * *

  It’s my turn to keep watch, and I gladly climb on top of our car, letting the others sleep below me as the pine trees stretch high above me, only showing a sliver of the moon. I’m glad for the light, even if it’s only a little. Being in pitch blackness wouldn’t do a damn thing for my nerves or for my growing unease that our plans are stuck in some void.

  After escaping and meeting up with Blanche, we stopped to tend to the boys’ wounds. It took us hours to dig the buckshot from Buck’s limbs. Rather, it took Blanche hours. The idea of digging into his flesh with a knife turned my stomach upside down.

  It’s bad of me, but I didn’t offer any insistence ’bout removing Clyde’s after he said to leave ’em be.

  “They don’t hurt much,” he said. “And they’re likely to work themselves out.”

  The most I did was bandage his arm, while keeping an eye on the wind howling through the trees. It got strong, too strong, and an honest-to-God twister practically chased us north before Blanche could get the slugs out of Buck.

  Those storms are no good, popping up out of nowhere. Unpredictable. As if we need something else on our tails, keeping our shoulders tense and our eyes red. We drove for a whole day, Buck and Clyde trading off behind the wheel, to get up near the top of Indiana.

  At least the weather competes with us for headlines.

  EIGHTY-NINE PEOPLE KILLED, ANOTHER THOUSAND INJURED BY TORNADOES

  BARROW CLEANS OUT FIRST STATE BANK OF ST. PAUL, ’cept that wasn’t us.

  INDIANA FLOODING, WORST IN TWENTY YEARS

  BARROW AND POSSE FLEE AFTER ROBBERY, GUNFIRE EXCHANGED

  One would think we’d use our noggins, and not set up camp next to a lake.

  “Fool,” Buck said.

  But Clyde argued the flooding was miles and miles away in central Indiana. We’re practically in Michigan, based on his map.

  Buck argued right back, “If that water so much as raises an inch, Blanche and I are gone.”

  Tensions are high.

  Up here on the roof of the car, I stare into the near darkness, a shotgun in my lap, and I take in mouthfuls of the pinewood air. With queasiness wreaking havoc on my head, I need this, even if the nighttime unknowns give me the jitters. Who knows what creepy-crawly things slither ’round below me? I turn my gun toward every sound I hear. My muscles are beginning to ache with all the twisting and turning.

  When morning comes, it marks a few days we’ve camped here, the boys licking their wounds, and we’re back on some road. I can’t recall what day it is, but it’s no longer April, and May is ticking by.

  “We can’t go on like this,” Blanche says from the rear seat. Her voice is muffled, with her two hands on the back of Clyde’s seat, her head dropped between ’em. “Blanche is losing her mind.”

  Clyde veers off the road. Her head snaps up.

  “Settle down, Clyde,” Buck yells, steadying Blanche.

  I reach over the gun that’s always between us on the bench seat, and squeeze Clyde’s knee.

  “This ain’t a dictatorship,” Clyde says.

  Buck snorts. “Could’ve fool—”

  “What do ya have in mind, Blanche?” I ask.

  “I just don’t see how driving in circles is getting us any closer to getting off the road. You two want the farm, right?”

  “Farms,” Clyde says. “Both of ’em.”

  Blanche waves her hand. “Right. And what are we doing to make that happen?”

  “We?” Clyde retorts.

  “We’re still here, ain’t we?” she says. “You want to bust a bunch of convicts out of jail, by all means. I don’t give a flying bung-hole anymore. I just want all this runnin’ to stop so Buck and I can get on with our lives.”


  “Okay?” I say, the most amused I’ve been in quite some time.

  “Okay, so go rob a bank or something,” Blanche suggests. “We’re already being blamed for ones we ain’t even holding up. Might as well do it for real. Make it a big one and be done with all these games.”

  Clyde shakes his head. “Banks are trouble.”

  “Blanche’s right,” Buck says. Her chest poofs up like a peacock. “The loot’s better. We won’t have to rob something every day or two. We hit a bank, we bust open the prison,” he says, not looking at his wife, “then with our winnings we’ll have the means to hide away right away, ya know.”

  I like the idea. After we robbed the bank with Raymond, we had enough money to get ourselves a nice parcel of land. That is, before the law stole our stash back. After the bank robbery with Jones, we had enough to lay low for a few weeks. I can see Clyde working the idea through his head as well, his fingers tappin’ against the wheel.

  “All right,” he says, “but it needs to be big-time.” He leans his head back, facing the roof, but talking to Blanche behind him. “And I’ll need Buck’s help.”

  She doesn’t miss a beat. “Fine. One and done.”

  19

  A few afternoons later, I picture Clyde and Buck driving a coupe into some small Minnesota town and waltzing into its bank. They’ll hide, and when it’s the bank’s quitting time, the boys will be locked in ’til a banker opens shop in the morning. Clyde will be waiting with a Good morning and an Empty the vault. It’s another of his clever plans that sounds gravy on paper, but I worry ’bout another fella thinking himself a hero.

  Blanche and I stay behind, parked deep in the woods of Minnesota. I eye the trees all ’round us, ones that could come down on us any second. Lightning streaks ignite the night, and I pull my knees to my chest, taking up only a quarter of the sedan’s front bench. Fat raindrops splatter against the windshield, and my goodness … “I’ve just ’bout had enough of these storms.”

  “I’ve just ’bout had enough of this life,” Blanche says, her tone snarky.